"It could have gone better."

"It could have been worse."

The two brothers stared at each other over the small space between them provided by the surface of a polished wood table. They sat in the Gnawed Noble, each holding a mug of ale in their hands that were drained down to differing levels. Fergus had hardly touched his alcohol, while Aedan was nearly finished with his mug.

"I didn't think he would actually kill Loghain." Fergus said quietly, fiddling with the handle of his mug absently. "It came as a bit of a shock to us all, I think."

Aedan snorted indelicately. "You didn't see Theron's expression. He looked most shocked of all, I think. Whatever you did to our new monarch, it's apparently changed him drastically enough to warrant… well, this." He gestured vaguely to the air, indicating the events of the Landsmeet as a whole and finished the last of his drink.

Silence elapsed between the two brothers. A bar maid came around and refilled Aedan's mug, to which he politely nodded and slipped a coin on the table, which she took with a wink and went back to her other duties.

"I don't like this Fergus." Aedan muttered darkly after a while, taking a drink from his fresh ale. Across from them near the door, the Warden's companions were drinking and being generally noisy together, an after-effect of the party that had spilled out of Eamon's estate to congratulate the King on his new victory. Alistair was at the center of the chaos, looking bashful while the others regaled each other with stories of their various misadventures throughout the Blight leading up to this point. The new king wasn't the only one who was flabbergasted at the way that things had turned out.

"There are precious few other people that can be trusted to this responsibility." Fergus replied with a grim look on his face. "Denerim's Arl would normally be in charge of this, but…"

"Dead." Aedan filled in with a grimace. "Seems Ferelden is suffering a shortage of leaders at the moment." The shortage in question being one that he'd had a personal hand in exacerbating. With the death of Howe and Loghain, there was yet another gap in power in the noble ranks that needed filling. Alistair was filling Anora's role, but there were some who grumbled about it now that the high of the Landsmeet had settled. If it weren't for the war with the darkspawn on their steps, there would be dissention in the ranks over the usurper king, as some had started calling him while deep in their cups.

"Which is why you're being left in charge of the city while the bulk of our armies go to Redcliffe." Fergus took a long pull from his own mug before setting it down again. "The main body of the darkspawn may very well be posted to fall on Redcliffe, but there is far more than a single army's worth to the horde. Denerim may come under attack by darkspawn forces that we can't account for."

"I know." Aedan heaved a heavy sigh. "But I feel like I'm being left with Highever again and Howe is standing outside the gate."

"That will never happen again." Fergus said with surprising surety. "For now Ferelden is united and all otherwise unassigned men will be marching for Redcliffe in the morning. Just keep Denerim from falling to pieces while we're away."

Aedan shot his brother a weak grin and lifted his mug in toast. "To younger brothers! May they always be left behind to babysit."

Fergus humored him and clacked his mug against Aedan's. "Keep an eye on those Templars. Make sure they don't get it in their heads that they can take over the city while we're away."

"I always keep my eyes on the Templars." Aedan snorted and took another drink. "Don't have to tell me twice about that."

Across the way Oghren was belching the alphabet to the applause of his companions who were obviously quite drunk to be amused by such juvenile humor. Even Theron cracked a smile at the madness, though he seemed extremely uncomfortable in such close quarters as the booth that they were sharing and the loudness of it all.

"Everything is going to be different once this is over with." Aedan remarked, watching their antics. "A Warden on the throne… I'll bet no one saw that coming."

"There will certainly be no shortage of interesting things to settle if we can defeat this Blight." Fergus agreed, watching as well for a moment then leveled a look at the side of Aedan's head. "So, when's the proposal going to happen?"

Aedan sputtered, wincing when ale burned it's way in the wrong direction. "Pardon?"

"Well, as the old saying goes, first comes the bedding, then next a wedding." Fergus indulged himself in a grin, delighted that his younger brother had now turned an interesting shade of pink.

"Damnit Fergus!" Aedan groused, trying and failing to get his furious blush under control. "I am not nearly drunk enough to discuss this. Besides, it took me all this time just to convince her to stay. I doubt that she's going to accept a marriage proposal any time soon."

"Fine, fine." Fergus was obviously not placated by that answer but was willing to move on to other subjects. "How is Kallian? I imagine you're going to have to be working with her while we're gone to secure the Alienage. Whatever Loghain's faults, he was right about the Alienage. It will be hard to hold if Denerim is attacked.

"She'll be all right in time." Aedan conceded hesitantly, looking up as the Warden's party disturbed the rest of the Noble with a chorus of laughter. "The damage done to the Alienage might take a generation or two to recover from, but they'll manage. The elves are enduring, if anything. I'll send what relief I can spare tomorrow to help repair it as best as can be managed, but I feel like it will never be enough to make up for what was done to them."

"Father would have been proud to hear you talk like that." Fergus said quietly, swirling his ale. "If things had been different, I think he would have wanted you to succeed him."

Aedan snorted and took a drink. "Ah, you forget that I was just the rowdy younger brother. I would have burned down Highever in a second if he'd made me Teyrn. It took a lot to make me slightly more responsible than the common cutpurse." 'A lot' of course meaning the death of his family and the protracted revenge scheme that he had put into place involving a blood mage, a rogue elf, and the rumored king-slaying Wardens. He wondered still if his dead father would look at him with disgust if he were alive to see it, but he quenched those doubts with another drink and the satisfaction of knowing that Howe was a corpse, and he was not.

Fergus watched him quietly and took a drink of his own. "What's done is done." He said after a moment, as if reading Aedan's thoughts. "Our problem now is the darkspawn. All of the rest of this-" he gestured vaguely at the air "-can be sorted out once we're not all in mortal peril."

His returning grin was small and weak, but visible all the same. "Seems a lot of things need to be put off to the side when the world is in mortal peril."

"Life does grind to a bit of a halt in the wake of a crisis." Fergus replied with hints of his easy humor and smiled at the dour expression that Aedan was trying to force away. "We'll get through this, too."

Aedan nodded in agreement, but his heart was not in the motion.

Unseen by the rowdy group surrounding the new king or the brothers sitting across from them, The Warden slipped out of the noise and the chaos and out into the welcoming darkness of night where the wind revitalized some of his foggy head. He didn't drink much on principle, just because he was never a fan on the way that it dulled his senses. Theron was a hunter of the Dalish to the core, and reveled in the feeling of being alive with all senses on alert. The clear sharpness of the world when he was in the grip of a hunt and the thrill of stalking prey on the run clever enough to make his job difficult.

For once, he had let those warrior instincts drop, knowing that his friend needed a night to forget what had happened. Alistair didn't want the throne. He wanted revenge. Theron could understand that. But in getting one, he also had to take the other, and now here they were. Two Wardens left, one a king, and both on the edge of madness. Perhaps he needed a night to forget just as much as Alistair did.

Theron didn't think as he walked, simply letting his feet guide him as he meandered the city. It wasn't long before he found himself scaling a couple of rooftops, easily hopping the border between where the shemlen lived and where they kept their elves. He couldn't understand why he kept returning to this place of desolation and squalor, nor did he pause to try and examine the reasons. Theron didn't want to contemplate. He simply wanted to be.

Standing before the great tree in the center of the Alienage, he slipped off his boots and climbed the tree with deft ease, navigating the wide trunk and branches as if he had practiced climbing the Vhenadahl all his life. He settled himself on a large wide branch near the top and got comfortable, folding his hands in his lap. He stared up at the sky as he had been fond to do as of late, letting his mind go blank, determined not to think about the battle that awaited him when they got to Redcliffe. His nightmares had been steadily getting worse as the days rolled on, heralding what must be the end. He never saw the Archdemon in the dreams, but he heard the singing, a sad plaintive cry that always broke his heart to hear. But the Taint was not all sad lullabies and the dreams always turned to visions of placed dark and horrible, filled with darkspawn and other nameless terrors.

But he was awake now, and high in the branches of the Vhenadahl tree with the darkness and silence of the Alienage around him, it was easy to not think about such things.

"I thought I told you that the hahren doesn't like outsiders touching our tree."

Theron looked down to see Kallian hauling herself up on a branch next to him, carefully maintaining her balance as she sat on the broad limb and made herself comfortable. "But the tree hasn't protested." Theron replied mildly, watching Kallian settle in. "At least not that I've heard."

Kallian looked at him sharply, obviously startled. "You can talk to trees?"

Theron let her think that for a moment before smiling, giving himself away. "No, only the Keepers can do that."

She stared at him, unconvinced and crossed her arms over her chest. "Sure they can. But what're you doing up here? I thought you didn't like the Alienage."

"I don't." Theron replied and turned his gaze skyward. "But I do like this tree. It reminds me of home."

"Where is home for the Dalish?" Asked Kallian, threading her fingers together over her propped up knee.

"Wherever the clan is." Came the simple reply, and Theron looked over to see Kallian shooting him a look. "For me, Ferelden has mostly been home. My clan has been steadily moving through the mountains and forests of Ferelden for as long as I can remember. I think we were in Orlais for a short time, but only very near the border. The Brecilian has been my favorite so far. The trees there are very old and filled with ancient magic, and littered with undiscovered elfish ruins. There is a lot of history for us here that has yet to be unearthed."

Kallian blinked at the fondness of his tone, surprised by how soft he sounded when he wasn't being gruff and Warden-y. "I didn't take you for being so sentimental."

Theron rolled his eyes. "That is because you've only seen me as a Warden, lethellan. I have been little else but a warrior for a long time. But…" He traced a crack in the tree's limb he sat on, a stress fracture perhaps from a high wind or the weight of the tree itself that had started to heal with time. "The Vhenadahl is for remembering. An old tree like this carries many memories of the people it has watched over its life. Tomorrow we march for Redcliffe, and I will probably die there fighting the Archdemon and the Blight. Hopefully my life will mean something then, but for now I would just like to remember the times that came before."

"Hey, hey!" Kallian did not like the way the conversation was going and she stood on her branch, a frown on her face. "You can't give up before you've even put foot on the battlefield!"

"I haven't given up lethellan." Theron replied. "I've just accepted my lot in life."

"Well un-accept it!" Kallian jumped over to Theron's branch, navigating the narrow space with expert ease to come and stand over him like a child caught with their hands in the cookie jar. "You're definitely gonna die with an attitude like that."

Theron was stunned speechless at her sudden vehemence. "Why do you care?" To his credit he sounded more befuddled than offended like he normally would have.

Kallian was taken aback by the question anyway and thought it over for a long silent moment. Then she crouched down so that their knees were nearly touching, balancing on the balls of her feet. "Because it's hard to pay back a debt to a dead person." The reply had Theron quirking an eyebrow and prompted Kallian to elaborate. "Well, you pulled my sorry ass out of trouble once, and helped with that magister. I owe you for that. If you run off and die in a heroic blaze of glory, I'm gonna be stuck with this debt forever. So promise you'll come back." She'd gone quiet and serious, her earlier bluster draining away.

"Lethallan, I can't." Theron replied quietly, sitting up straight and folding his legs in a cross. My duty is to stop the Blight, whatever the cost. If that means I have to give my life toward that end…"

"Then can you promise that you won't be stupid and reckless?" Kallian asked, kneeling now that there was space to do so and sat back on her heels. Theron was silent on that point too long for her liking, waffling about his answer and she abruptly stood and dropped, swinging from the branch and landing on the ground below with a loud thump.

"Wait!" Theron called, quickly scrambling to his feet and dropped from the branch as well, landing smoothly on bent knees and sprang after Kallian who was stomping her way back home. "Kallian, wait."

"Why?" She whirled around, all barbs and anger. "You're just gonna tell me how duty is more important than living. Sod off. I don't need to hear it." She started to turn to leave when he reached out and grabbed her arm, turning her around again.

"I don't want to die." He said suddenly when Kallian opened her mouth to yell at him. "Believe that I don't want to die, if nothing else. But I can't promise that I'll come back alive or play it safe and hope for the best. If we fail at Redcliffe and the Archdemon escapes or kills us all, Ferelden will be lost. My home will be lost. There are no more Wardens coming. They're stationed to protect Orlais but refuse to breach the border. Whether the country survives or not depends entirely on this battle. I want to live-" He reiterated, steadfastly meeting Kallian's gaze, "But I may not have a choice in the matter. Not with the fate of the world hanging in the balance like this."

Kallian was silent, her fire gone, dampened by the heavy weight that Theron bore. Hesitantly she took a small step forward and leaned in, placing a small kiss on the Warden's cheek. "Go be a hero, then." Without another word she turned to leave but he caught her hand and held it until she was forced to look at him over her shoulder, an obvious question in her gaze. "What?"

"If by some miracle I do return, would you be here?" He asked, not knowing exactly why it seemed so important to him. To have something to return to… a place to belong.

Her smile was cautious and she touched the red mark covering the hand that he still held of hers. "You're one of us, and we're in this together. I'll be here."

He let her hand slip out of his and she left, back into the depths of the Alienage where she blended into the night like a shadow, leaving Theron in the middle of the street under the boughs of the Vhenadahl to contemplate his own words.

•º•.•º•

On the morning that the combined forces of all of Ferelden left Denerim, Aedan stood by the gates and watched with a face as passive as stone, Solona lingering near by, holding lightly to her staff and watched the procession. Though he was filled with trepidation, Aedan was very careful to not let any of it show and raised his hand in a genial gesture to the ranks of soldiers as they passed. They were already headed for an impossible task, there was no need to make the men any more nervous by displaying weakness and fear now. They needed all of the confidence that they could get.

Behind him stood a small representation of the troops that were to be left behind when the bulk of the army left. They bore the crest of Denerim on their shields, though a couple of individuals were marked with the Cousland crest. They were some of the most loyal of the Highever soldiers that had come to defend the Cousland brothers in their time of need, and were being left to help Aedan maintain some semblance of authority once everyone else of importance was gone. A couple additional cats to keep the rats at bay, as it were.

With his soldiers at his back and the walking dead before him, Aedan could afford no lapse in character, nor did he show any signs of weakening the strong mask that he wore. Solona worried for him, worried for all of them, but she kept her peace and their distance. They had both agreed that making their relationship public wasn't the wisest choice now of all times, and kept a friendly space between each other when in the public eye, just as they had been for the better part of a year.

Fergus approached with a shadow of his normally cheerful grin on his face and clasped hands with Aedan's in a warrior's grip, their armor clanking against each other. "You stay safe, little brother."

"Worry about your own hide." Aedan replied with forced bravado, clapping his brother roughly on the shoulder. "If you go out there and die, I'll kill you myself."

That got a legitimate chuckle out of Fergus, and he returned Aedan's shoulder clap with one of his own, shaking him by the arm a bit. "We'll send those darkspawn packing, you'll see. Then we'll come back covered in glory and blood, and the bards will sing of us for generations."

"I'll just be glad to see you home safe. No glory required." Aedan replied and gave Fergus' shoulder another pat before letting his arm drop to his side. "I'll see to it that Denerim is kept safe. You just concentrate on saving the world."

Fergus grinned. "I'll do at that. Eyes on the horizon. Look for us on the return march home." The brothers shared a loose embrace, careful of each other's armor and then bid each other farewell, both knowing that it was entirely possible that this could be their last time seeing one another.

Solona finally broke her peace then, closing the distance between them and gently laid her hand on Aedan's arm. "I don't usually pray to the Maker." She said quietly, looking at Fergus' retreating form. "Ever since the Circle… Well, I don't even know if the Maker or his bride would listen to someone like me. But I will pray for his return. You've lost too much already."

Aedan broke his gaze from Fergus and looked down at Solona, a small fragile smile on his lips. "Thank you." He touched the back of her hand with the tips of his fingers and she withdrew. After all they'd been through with dodging the Chantry and the Templars, neither of them had turned to the Maker in a long time. But just this once, in a time of darkness when faced with the wrath of their god, spawned of the follies of man, perhaps it was okay.

Turning toward the men behind him, Aedan made a small gesture to the once directly to his right, tense and awaiting orders. "Go assemble your men, captains." He said in a firm voice, and the soldiers snapped themselves to attention immediately. "You have your orders." There was a chorus of "yessir!" from those assembled and then the captains and what gathered men there were scattered to go accomplish their individual assignments. The defense of Denerim began.

Hey guys! Long time no see, right? Well, it's summer now. Exams are done, so freetime is back. Gosh, it's been a while since I've written. Like, really written. Anyway, the Landsmeet was sort of the peak, and now we're in a downward slide towards the end. All the exciting things happen from here on out!

I don't really know what the update schedule is going to be like, if there is one at all. But I've been doing a lot of writing for random pieces of chapters go come, so it probably won't take long to pull them all together into something more cohesive than simple snippets. We'll see. But I plan to finish this out by the end of summer. Thanks everyone for sticking with me! Onto the glorious end!